futureofthebook.com

genie of the book

Here we can use the ambiguous English word meaning both genius and Jinni;
Chris Clarkson is on-line! The book conservator’s book conservator and advocate for all that is wonderful. Protector of Mysteries. Medium of the book of the past and the future.

rain clouds

“Cloud computing is ideally suited to these so-called cybernomads, as it can provide them with, in essence, a computer to call their own – a virtual desktop, or “webtop,” that exists entirely in an online data center and hence can be accessed from any PC. Cybernomads can use their password-protected webtops to run applications, store data, and share files with others. Virtual PCs are more energy efficient than real PCs, they don’t wear out or require physical maintenance, and they can often be provided free, through ad-supported or other subsidized programs.”
Nicholas Carr

As the screen becomes more Jinni than jar, the electronic book will also be better perceived. The familar trope of the conceptual work not yet resolved into physical form will be easily recognized for what it is.

at home with Tschichold and Schmoller

“Stockhausen indeed used colour in some scores. The (notorious) Helikopter-Streichquartett score is in four colours; you can take a look at the
first page. There was another score, one of the scenes of Mittwoch aus Licht (Michaelion I think, but I might be wrong) which used colour for the dynamics, with gradients from one colour to another for crescendo/diminuendo.

Thomas Adesí piano piece íDarknesse Visibleí (based on a song by John Dowland) is also printed in different colours, with the colours distinguishing different transformations of the original material which overlap. (Then thereís a nice touch at the end where a fragment of the original appears verbatim, extremely quitely, which is printed in grey.)” ingemisco – general discussions forum,
typophile

unintended consequences

“What seems to be happening is that Google is searching over its entire
corpus with lines from the book at hand to see where else its passages
occur. From the results, Google assesses popularity. It’s an
interesting tool. The strategy fails to recognize, however, that
books contain ads. Thus what would appear, by Google’s critera, as a
most popular passage, oft repeated, is merely a set of publishers ads,
oft reprinted. this is
not a direct assault on the usefulness of Google books, merely a way
of highlighting limitations of the designers’ assumptions about
difference between “the book” as a text and the book as a physical,
commercial object; and about what makes for popularity.”
Paul Duguid

Print books are not designed to be read indiscriminately. Much of the para-text, such as the repeating page headers, are not intended to be read. Illustrations as well. The reader may be presented with a figure in a landscape and read only a facial expression. In both text and illustration, the bionic reader “zooms” to elements of meaning. Machine reading is not that discrete and conveys an endless commodity.

What the search engines distort is the quality of print books as multiple media works and the quality of bionic reading as discretely focused. The obstacle that automated search entails, including the unannounced expanses and contractions of the commodities searched, is the unexplained expanses and contractions of the results delivered.

the book look

“THE BOOK
For the past five hundred years, humans have used print ó the book and its various page-based cousins ó to move ideas across time and space. Radio, cinema and television emerged in the last century and now, with the advent of computers, we are combining media to forge new forms of expression. For now, we use the word “book” broadly, even metaphorically, to talk about what has come before ó and what might come next.”
mission statement; Institute for the Furture of the Book

“For now, we use the word .” Behind this disguise is notbook, another jinni. But who is making the wishes and which room, the future of the book or the book look, is haunted?

digital print

“And with services like Lulu and the new Borders program, we’re seeing some of that social mobility reflected back onto print. New affordances of digital production and the flexibility of print on demand have radically lowered the barriers to publishing in print as well as in bits, and so what was once dismissed categorically as vanity is now transforming into a complex topography of niche markets where unmet readerly demands can finally be satisfied by hitherto untapped authorial supplies.”
If:Book

hand-to-hand copyright

Digitization of print works is frustrated by copyright restraint, yet libraries exploit copyright paper books for relatively endless distribution, albeit linear circulation. But linear physical circulation, one reader after another, can’t be relevant in the digital world, can it?!

Well, just a moment, is linear circulation relevant in research across time and cultures? Does linear circulation, say the passing of a colonial pamphlet from hand-to-hand, not influence events? Isn’t this easy, lawful library “circumvention” of copyright restrain worth a moment’s notice?

the network reconfigures the library

Lorcan Dempsey, Strategic Planning Officer for
OCLC, discussed how the network is reconfiguring the people, places, collections, and services of research libraries. He has given this some thought in a context of his wide understanding of online access to library materials.

Lorcan sees the library transforming into an instructional service while diminishing its book storage role. He emphasized the partnering with other campus instruction activities such as departmental exhibits or writing centers. He warned of the “opportunity cost”, the cost of diminished options, if the place and social function of libraries are not invigorated as relocated physical book storage empties out the buildings.

From a FotB perspective this all seems too politically correct and another instance of the library world’s too easy deference to any new research and reading methodology. The research library has another responsibility to manage the mastering and back-up of textual works over the long term.

We mentioned the continuing role of the “tangible” collections to provide cost minimal mastering and back-up for the digital delivery of knowledge. Of course there was immense impatience with even a mention of real books, let alone any implication of their continuing role in the context of digital delivery. Lorcan immediately pointed out that book storage is not cost free. FotB countered that operation of server farms is not cost free either and that projections over the longer term, tip in favor of the cost free persistence of physical books.

But the real ideological divide here is the popular assumption that screen delivery of books is somehow of greater value than the continuing mastering and back-up role of print books, somehow of much greater value. This is a cultural, USA, attitude that may be one of our favorite delusions; that the newest is smartest.

extreme materialist

“This seminar will bring together contemporary book artists specializing in medieval-inspired techniques of papermaking, bookbinding, and calligraphy, among others, with medievalists whose scholarship depends upon a knowledge of the intimate physical details of medieval manuscript production. Participants will bring to the seminar the draft of an unpublished essay that models extreme materialist readings of a medieval book as a case study that will be discussed by all of the seminar participants, each bringing his or her own expertise.” Obermann seminar, June 2-13, University of Iowa (from
Medieval Academy)

Stay tuned on this; Iowa prides itself on introspections of the discomforts between craftspeople and academics.

format options

The iPhone and its equivalent devices are today’s stand-ins for the functionality of the medieval
Book of Hours. This is because these personal electronic devices habituate us to secular prayers of connectivity and intercession. Our life of daily devotions is just as arranged as those of long ago and the functionality of the Book of Hours still identifies the pious and literate.

Another curiosity of this comparison is the role of the book format. The Book of Hours was the best seller of the manuscript era. Most people of the middle ages never even saw a Bible. The book format presentation of scriptures would need to wait the advent of printing. So this early functionality of the Book of Hours to schedule daily prayers was an expedient adaptation of an available format in a culture that favored rote devotional behavior. But this was not, like print schedules and directories, an optimal adaptation of the book format that would only emerge later. Then, as a format for knowledge transmission, the book found its optimal function in relation to both the Book of Hours and the iPhone.

preserving access

“Ironically, many librarians were unhappy with a 2005 OCLC report because one of their key findings was that in the public’s eye, the library brand is books. That finding is troubling if people think of libraries as ONLY about books. But we will be in much more trouble if our users stop thinking even that. Do you want a book? Go to Google or Yahoo or Amazon.com. Where will libraries be then?” Trudi Bellardo Hahn, on “Mass Digitization” in the January issue of Library Resources and Technical Services

It is time for libraries to take credit for the services that they perform which make the mass book digitization projects rational activities. For example, only libraries will image the deteriorated books. Corporate book digitization projects promote themselves as high production activities compared to the slow and careful reformatting of libraries, but these high speed capture projects cannot be bothered or delayed by difficult and fragile items. So, the library reformatting exactly complements and fulfills the mass conversion projects. In the same context, corporate conversion programs cannot be distracted by any standards of image quality and copy authentication which are so carefully achieved and maintained by library reformatting.

And what happens if a book must be (heaven forbid) rescanned? Just who is both mastering and backing-up these precarious, corporate fly-bys? And, finally, corporate book digitization assumes that you can have access without preservation. Is that really possible? Not if access is an activity across time and er, across generations. In that context preservation IS access.

dot com not org

Wild Script and Print has kindly linked to the small town, corn dog, legacy site, FotB.com rather than the much more accomplished and big city Institute FotB.org.

pbi uk

Collective Workshops will adopt many of the features of
Paper and Book Intensive, but in England.

er, change

“The O’Reilly
Tools of Change for Publishing Conference raises the level of technology knowledge and discourse in the publishing industry, and provides a meeting ground for everyone involved in the future of publishing.”

The 2007 conference hyperventilated the hybrid of a physical book with electronic pages and live links. This theme can be an issue again in 2008. The FotB view is that (much as early TV escaped cinema conventions) the hand held reading device will configure its functionality immediately following escape from the print exemplar.

haptic station

“When sanded and beveled correctly it should feel smooth to the touch and while folding paper it should provide enough drag for you to feel the tooth of the paper without it feeling rough.”
Volcano Arts

scribe, script, scroll

Susan Kapuscinski is our wonderful Good Spirit guide to living books. Watch for her soon to spin tale of the story of her Spirit Books. Look at her happy site. Learn of her Good Works, dark books and light. See the elegant script.

true story

A few years ago
Shanna Leino buried a book in a waxed linen pocket. A year later she sent me another book with a story that told of a buried book left by a wandering Coptic monk who had passed through Coralville Iowa. Sure enough! I was able to use the clues to unearth the ancient codex. So the book was in nature and history and that was its quality and the story of the Coptic monk in Iowa now seemed true.

print wiki

“Some Wikipedias release or plan to release regular snapshots. The German Wikipedia is released twice a year as a DVD, in collaboration with Directmedia Publishing, and the Polish Wikipedia has released one DVD of content.”

The day will come when the snapshots will be conveyed to print. That will signal the full cycle from manuscript to print, from screen pre-press to paper and from digital transmission to persistent digital delivery. Our time will come.

bibliographic utility

“Perhaps we should think of Google Books as another finding aid, rather
than as a collection. What it has done for me is to narrow considerably the actual books and
periodicals I need to look at. In doing local history research one often
deals with strange publications that are held in few (and unlikely)
repositories and have not been indexed. The ability to do a name search
on
Google Books, even if one gets only a snippet, tells you where more can
(or
can’t) be found. And while not having something on Google doesn’t mean
it
doesn’t exist, it helps you rule out quite a bit without travel or
effort. Finding which libraries actually have the thing means that I can
often get a copy of the relevant page or pages from a distant library,
because librarians are extremely helpful.” Beth Luey

“In general I am of the opinion that Google is a present from heaven for those who know and a disaster from hell for those who do not. When you start to study a subject as a student there is much to be said for having to search i.e. dig for information, evaluating your finds, looking at the books you have found and read the introductions to see what the authors are like (boors, interesting, geniuses etc).” Paul Dijstelberge

great adventure

Priscilla and Don have moved to T or C (Truth or Consequences) New Mexico. Take
a look at the magnificent bindery and museum to be.

flickering printing

There is a flickering of the Atlas top page of the
Early Printing site, but scout the other resources for the moment.

who is the marginalia?

” The print book may have some life left in it yet, but it now functions within a larger networked commons. To deny this could prove fatal for publishers in the long run. Print books today need dynamic windows into the Web and publishers need to start experimenting with the different forms those windows could take or else retreat further into marginality.”
Ben Vershbow

The assumption that print is doomed but for the salvation of networked review, collaborative authorship, blog promotion and on-line revision is loony. Networked germination of print publication is neither a method unknown in history or an agenda for future displacement of print publication. The exemplar from history is the transition from manuscript to print, long known as an interactive and collaborative phase of publication. Going forward the on-line mediations extend to powerful search and research functions, but never quite dissolve or displace print. On-line resources, including facsimile print, are bibliographic utilities and not books themselves.

Network publication advocates dismiss the print publisher as intent on commoditization of conceptual works. Well, what exactly is wrong with that? We have long conveyed conceptual works via physical objects and the day may come that we see a paper Wiki. (The Star Trek entry has been suggested). When this occurs we will have marked a full cycle of interaction between screen and print. The result will be fulfillment of network publication in print.